In the nation’s halls of power, age is more than just a number – San Francisco Examiner
President Donald Trump — seen during a June 4 event in the Oval Office — is just one of many octogenarian officials in Washington, D.C.
President Donald Trump — seen during a June 4 event in the Oval Office — is just one of many octogenarian officials in Washington, D.C.
President Trump turns 80 years old Sunday, only the second president in American history to reach that milestone.
Many detractors cite that number as evidence that he’s no longer competent to serve, as if there was a previous age when he demonstrated competence.
Trump doesn’t help the cause with his embarrassing and oft-repeated claim that he has routinely “aced” a cognitive test which is only administered to detect signs of impairment or dementia.
However, our octogenarian president is hardly without peers in Washington, D.C. Two dozen House members are older than Trump, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is six years his senior.
In the Senate, seven members are older, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who is 92 and was re-elected to another six-year term in 2024.
There is nothing inherently wrong with working into your 80s or even 90s, though barely one in five Americans chooses to do so.
Margaret Atwood still writes. Martha Stewart still cooks. Clint Eastwood still directs. Willie Brown still holds court. Paul McCartney — who at 83 is the youngest on this list — still performs.
Yet when it comes to Congress, polls show that Americans support setting age caps by overwhelming margins. It’s a curious finding, seeing as members of Congress only serve because a majority of their constituents put them there.
Is it more reasonable to tell people they aren’t allowed to choose a candidate over 80 than it would be to ban them from buying tickets to, say, a Bob Dylan concert? Common sense might lead them to reject both, but it would be their choice.
In last week’s primary election in California, voters displayed limits to their antipathy toward age. In Sacramento, 82-year-old Rep. Doris Matsui was running several thousand votes behind fellow Democrat Mai Vang, 41, in her quest for a 12th term. However, Reps. Maxine Waters, 86 and John Garamendi, 81, were far outpacing their challengers.
The Constitution places minimum-age restrictions on serving as a member of Congress or as president. However, the restrictions weren’t solely motivated by fear of immaturity.
The framers agreed on a 35-year-old age minimum for president in part to prevent sons from replacing their fathers, which felt too close to British monarchies. And they barred anyone under 30 from serving in the Senate and under 25 from serving in the House because they wanted candidates to have long-enough track records for those who elected them to be able to judge their abilities.
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“It confines the electors to men of whom the people have had time to form a judgment,” John Jay wrote in Federalist 64. It would minimize the chances of untested candidates with the “appearance of genius and patriotism, which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle,” he wrote.
The founders left that judgment to voters. So would I. I don’t think it’s right to restrict voter choices.
But I also don’t think it’s right for politicians so old to ask people for their votes.
I’ve covered elected officials in their 90s, including the late Strom Thurmond, a senator representing South Carolina who was born just 37 years after the end of the Civil War. His seniority gave him clout, yet he struggled to speak with clarity as he approached 100, which was his age when he died in 2003 while still serving in the Senate.
For most octogenarians in office, it’s not a matter of being cognitively functional. It’s a matter of being able to relate to the concerns and desires of your constituents.
The current median age is 64 for a member of the Senate, 57 for a member of the House. The median age for Americans is 39. That means that the typical member of Congress is a generation older than the typical American.
While some individuals have the instincts and empathy to relate to those decades younger than them, their experiences aren’t the same.
Those who have reached 80 grew up in a different era. It was not until after Trump was old enough to qualify for Medicare — 65 years old — that Twitter was born. When Pelosi turned 65, there were no iPhones. When Grassley turned 65, half of American households had no internet access.
I have no doubt there are 80-year-olds who can handle the demands of governing. At the same time, it is a rare 80-year-old who has innovative ideas to lead the country into the future.
Pelosi noted as she stepped down from Congressional leadership a few years ago that it was “time to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders.”
More politicians should hear those words. As Chuck Berry sang when Donald Trump was just 10 years old and a new era was replacing the old, “Roll over Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news.”
Marc Sandalow is a senior faculty member at the University of California’s Washington Program. He has been writing about California politics from Washington, D.C., for more than 30 years.
Marc Sandalow is a senior faculty member at the University of California’s Washington Program. He has been writing about California politics from Washington, D.C., for more than 30 years.
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